TLU’s rebuilding job goes to Danny Padron

Longtime San Antonio area coach Danny Padron, who led O’Connor High School to seven playoff berths in eight years, has been assigned the task of rebuilding the struggling football program at Texas Lutheran University.

Officials of the Seguin-based school announced Padron’s hiring on Friday.

They will make it official on Monday afternoon when he is introduced at a news conference in San Antonio.

Clearly, Padron is a winner.

What’s unclear is how much winning he can do at TLU, a once-proud program that won back-to-back national championships in the 1970s, only to have the plug pulled by the administration after the 1987 season.

TLU went 10 years without a team, before the school brought it back in 1998. Since then, success has been spotty, at best. In a dozen years since the game was revived, the Bulldogs have been through three coaches and have finished under .500 nine times.

The last three years under Dennis Parker were particularly rough. TLU finished 2-8, 4-6 and 0-10 under Parker, a former head coach at North Texas.

Padron’s first order of business next fall? Put a stop to a school-record 13-game losing streak. Then, at some point during his rebuilding effort, he will be asked to start a streak going the other way.

Is that possible?

Well, you have to think that someone with Padron’s record would have a good chance. Here are a few of highlights from his 38-year career in San Antonio area schools:

He helped Judson win a state championship 1992. Serving offensive coordinator for a high-powered offense featuring tailback Jerod Douglas, the Rockets roared through the playoffs and thrashed Euless Trinity 52-0 in Austin to clinch the title.

Starting in 2002, he compiled a 65-30 record as head coach at O’Connor. He led the Panthers to the playoffs for the last seven years in a row.

During a two-year run from 2003-04, O’Connor went 21-5. The Panthers’ best season came in 2003 when they finished 11-3 and reached the regional finals. They won 11 in a row that year before running into Clemens at the Alamodome.